This post is about Supernatural season 11 episode 18, “Hell’s
Angel,” written by Brad Buckner and Eugenie Ross-Leming and directed by Philip
Sgriccia.
******Spoilers below.*******
“The Horn of Joshua, touched by the hand of God.”
In Saudi Arabia, Crowley meets with a man named Noel. In
return for a weapon, Crowley tears up the man’s soul contract. And then snaps
his neck with a flick of his hand. When the man’s servants turn their guns on
him, he magicks them to point at each other instead so that he can escape while
they die.
“Honestly, your cynicism is depressing.”
After the title card, Crowley calls Dean to set up a
meeting. He tells him that he has the key to killing Amara or Lucifer. He’s
also being followed by demons.
“Because you're going to win, my dear. Yes, I know about the grievance between you and your brother and his archangel. I have my own ax to grind with Lucifer.”
Amara, meanwhile, is being cared for by none other than
Rowena—Crowley’s apparently not-dead mother. It turns out she hid some magic
inside her leg which revived her upon her death. See this post for more on
that.
“Did I say this would be easy? No. I did not.”
When the Winchesters meet up with Crowley, he offers them
the horn—IF they exorcise Lucifer from Castiel’s body and return him
immediately to the cage. The boys point out that they can’t access the cage
without Rowena and the Book of the Damned.
“If it makes you comfy, you could call me God.”
Meanwhile, Casifer has returned to heaven. When the angel
Jofiel refuses his “help” and calls his brothers for backup, Casifer snaps his
fingers and dissolves him into smoke. He then takes over a meeting of heaven’s
angels and tries to win them over to his human-hating anti-darkness side. He
tells them that he’s locked her up before, and they’re basically sold (but
uncomfortable).
“Yeah, well, there's times I want to get slapped during sex by a girl wearing a Zorro mask. That don't make it a good idea.”
Back on earth, the boys argue with Crowley about which
villain they should ice first. Dean and Sam think they should use Lucifer to
beat Amara. But then Dean reveals that he plans to get Lucifer a new vessel and
he’s lost Sam. Sam doesn’t want to make the “heart choice” over the “smart
choice.” Crowley just wants Lucifer gone and reminds them that he has the
bargaining power here; the boys know he’s right.
“Kindness gets you a hug, not a seat at the big boys' table.”
The girls are getting along well on the surface, but
underneath they each distrust the other. Amara can tell that Rowena is using
her—Rowena is trying hard to emotionally manipulate her, but Amara isn’t impressed.
“Don't you think about it too long. You know what they say -- He who hesitates disintegrates.”
Casifer is still working on the angels in heaven when Amara
tests her power by launching an attack on heaven that is so massive it can be
seen on earth. Casifer is pleased because the angels just might be scared
enough to get behind him. Rowena, however, is not-so-pleased. Amara’s power
scares her, so when she spies on the Winchesters using magic for Amara, she
lies and tells her that they’re not a threat. And then she steals away from
Amara to join them.
“You second rate bean counter.”
Dean, Sam, Rowena, and Crowley prepare to go with Crowley’s
plan. Dean summons Casifer and Sam traps him with holy fire while the other two
hide. Casifer wants the horn but Dean wants to talk to Cass. He attempts to
summon him, but it seems like Cass doesn’t really want to be involved. So
Crowley possesses the vessel so that they can talk. In his mind, Cass is
watching TV in the bunker. Crowley tries to convince Cass to expel Lucifer, but
Cass wants to wait until he’s beat Amara. But when Crowley tells him that Dean
wants him to do it, Cass starts to come around to the idea. But by then, it’s
too late as Lucifer has arrived in the mind bunker. As Lucifer and Crowley
fight, Cass is more concerned about them breaking the furniture than anything
else. Crowley sends the Winchesters a message by burning the words “help me”
onto his vessel’s forehead. Sam exorcizes Crowley, and when Crowley is back in
his own vessel, he tells them that Lucifer’s hold on Cass is too strong.
“I think you and I need to have a nice, long chat.”
Lucifer regains control of Castiel’s body as the warding
fails. He then takes the horn and gets ready to kill the Winchesters. But of
course he doesn’t get that far: Amara shows up at the last second and reveals
that she was tracking Rowena. Casifer uses the hand of God against her but
instead of dying, she absorbs its power. She then takes Casifer and frees the Winchesters.
“Well, let's go find that idiot and bring him home.”
The Winchesters commiserate over the quality of their
friends Rowena and Crowley. They also hypothesize that a hand of God requires “God’s
chosen” to have the power to beat Amara, and that Lucifer was not God’s chosen.
The two discuss Cass’s choice and agree that their policy is to not get in the
way of his will.
“As God's favorite, his first son, you may be the one thing in all of creation that he still cares about, the one thing that could finally make him show himself so that I can confront him and he can acknowledge the wrongs he's done me. And then he can witness the utter destruction of all his creation before he himself is swept away.”
Casifer offers to help Amara defeat God, and Amara refuses
to trust him for anything because of past betrayals. Instead, she decides to
torture him to try to lure God to her.
Questions:
Is Crowley’s meat suit dead? I can’t remember… but he just sits
there dazed whenever Crowley leaves him. I would think a dead body would fall
to the floor, but I would think a live one would react in some way. So… ?
Why couldn’t they put up more warding while Lucifer was
indisposed when talking to Crowley in Cass’s mind?
Will God deign to save Lucifer? I wouldn’t think so, but I
also don’t know God, so… He’s obviously
not “God’s Chosen,” which might point to no.
And btw, who is God’s chosen? I guess the plan is still to
find another hand of God and then play guess-and-check until they figure out
who can wield it? My bet is on a Winchester. I would have thought it might be
Cass, since God literally rebuilt him atom by atom, but . . . I don’t write the
show.
Conclusions:
There were some nice little touches about this episode that
I loved: Sam getting his hand caught in the spider web, the brothers bowling
with beer bottles. However, the episode as a whole was not very strong IMO. But
I tend to have a bias against plot-geared episodes in favor of the monster-of-the-week
type, so maybe that’s just me. I always feel like the story-arc episodes are a
little ham-fisted, like they don’t really make that much sense when you take a
longer look…
My favorite moment of the episode was Dean’s strangled yell
of “Cass!” when Amara captures him. And actually, all of the references to Dean’s
love for Cass. Also Sam performing an exorcism (why was this so unbelievably attractive?)
I also loved (hated) the look Sam shared with Casifer when he first showed up.
It was just so full of pain and fear; Sam’s reactions to Lucifer are the most
heart-breaking parts of this show to me, and every time the two have to
interact, I just spiral. Anyway.
Cass is SO determined to believe that Dean doesn’t love him
that he thinks Dean’s plea for him to expel Lucifer is “objective.” Poor baby.
HE LOVES YOU. GET IT INTO YOUR BRAIN.
I’ve been enjoying the reversal where Dean has to save Cass
this season. I really hope that it pays off—this episode has me really worried
about Cass’s well-being. Lucifer is the worst. I hate him more every episode.
Speaking of people who hate Lucifer, they brought Rowena back, yay! However, I
don’t like what they did with her. They wasted that. She’s awesome and she
deserves better.
Overall, the episode wasn’t in my top half for this season.
Honestly, I was kind of dreading re-watching it for this review, which is never
a good sign. But I do really want to know how this Darkness thing will resolve,
so I guess it’s still worth the watch.
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